Archive for the 'Real Estate Technology' Category

Real estate technology is creating a lot of advancements, including when it comes to property surveys. Did you know that you can often access land survey records online?

A survey can provide potential issues, such as fencing that extends past the property line, or an overhanging garage roof. In the past, obtaining a survey has been a major cost and inconvenience, especially when a new survey is required. But some services offer the ability to access online property surveys and plans.

A survey can also reveal important information to your client. For example, if they plan to put in a double garage, they’ll need to check if the property is zoned for one. Or maybe your client wants to use part of their property for a business. A survey can reveal these restrictions that may pose problems later.

Whether your client is buying or selling a house, a property survey may be required.

When buying a home, you might need to confirm that what is being sold is actually for sale.

When selling a home, you may need to confirm what land is actually available for sale.

If considering building or renovating, permits for many exterior projects require survey plans.

Boundary disputes: a survey plan can help quickly resolve this.

GeoWarehouse offers online property surveys and plans, so if your client needs a survey, check our store first — we might have one available for the property in question.

In our online store, subscribers can access plan images, such as reference plans and plans of subdivision. This can help identify property boundaries and their location. You can also view an image of the Survey Plan portion of a Surveyor’s Real Property Report, Building Location Survey, or other undeposited Plan provided by third-party surveying firms. This can grant you dimensions of boundaries and structural elements on the land.

If a survey is available online, it can save you a lot of time and money and make you look even better to your client. Online property surveys cost a lot less than requesting a whole new survey! The time to get it is also vastly reduced as its delivered electronically.

Don’t let a sale be delayed because of a lack of survey — the next time your client needs a property survey, check online first. Search for surveys and plans in the GeoWarehouse Store. If you’re not already a subscriber, become one today at www.geowarehouse.ca.

Use Appraisal Technology to Boost Your Business

Do you want to become the “Agile Appraiser?” Besides sounding like a superhero name, increasing your appraisal agility will help you work faster, adapt to changes, and boost your client appeal. The secret doesn’t lie in a red cape or a radioactive spider bite, though — instead, it’s in your appraisal technology.

Real estate tools are enabling home appraisers to approach their profession and automate their workflows like never before. With streamlined tools, easy searches, and instant results, you can do more from your desk. Multi-property search functionality makes finding the data you need easier than ever.

According to Canadian Property Valuation Magazine, when they’re relevant to the appraisal, a desktop review can dramatically increase production rates (valuations/reviews per day). Most jurisdictions conducting a desktop review can complete it in approximately 10 minutes, whereas a site visit can take approximately 40 minutes, not including travel. This can allow you to spend more time in analysis, rather than building the data.

Don’t wait to get started. Want to become the “Agile Appraiser?” Here are the tools that will get you there:

Access Property Details Virtually

Appraisal technology like the GeoWarehouse Property Details Report lets you access gives you valuable Land Registry information, MPAC Assessment data, property ownership information, sales history, images, and more. Plus, it’s completely customizable. Use this when determining a property’s market value — all the information you need in one place.

3D Virtual Property Tours

In many cases, you can view a property without ever stepping foot on it. StreetScape and PivotView Imagery lets you virtually “walk” around a property, even peering around corners. With crisp, clear images that can rotate 180 degrees, you can get a good overview of the site without leaving your desk.

Surveys and Plans at the Click of a Button

Property surveys and plans can oftentimes be accessed online. Data includes legal boundaries, easements, encroachments, and rights of way, plus the location of physical buildings and structures and their dimensions. In our GeoWarehouse store you can access reference plans, subdivision plans, and condominium plans.

When the spring housing market heats up, you need to be able to react quickly. That’s where real estate technology comes in.

When a new real estate lead lands on your desk, you want to get the sales process started as quickly as possible, particularly in the busy spring/summer season. Luckily, gone are the days of long wait times and having to travel to in-person offices to access vital information. With real estate technology you can get the property data you need in real-time, all from the comfort of your computer.

Real estate tools not only can you save time and money in the sales process, but you can also take it even further — quickly identify new leads, determine property value, find out the property’s sales history, and much more, all with the use of technology!

Here are some ways that technology can help you stay flexible this spring/summer season:

Show Properties Virtually, Right from Your Office

Some real estate tools, like the GeoWarehouse Property Details report, lets you show the property virtually. While a client will likely still want to see the property in person, being able to get an idea of the house online first can significantly narrow down your showings.

Technology like the GeoWarehouse StreetScape Imagery also lets you virtually walk around the exterior of a property. PivotView allows you to rotate the property 180 degrees for expanded views of the property.

Rule Out Undesirable Neighbourhoods and Narrow Your Focus

Before you accept a listing, you want to make sure that it is one in your target market, or that there aren’t any glaring issues. The Neighbourhood Demographics Report can help you do that. Demographic data helps you learn about age distribution, marital status of residents, owned/rented properties, average household income, dominant language, and more. Not only can this help you weed out properties that aren’t in your wheelhouse, but it can also help you find areas that do fit your list.

Detect Potential Fraud Early

The last thing you want is to go through the sales process only to find out that a client has an undisclosed lien or mortgage on their property. A POLARIS Parcel Register* will tell you the Property Identification Number, the legal description of the property, the type of ownership, registration (instrument) numbers for items registered on title, and more. If you have an instrument number, you can also go further and obtain an Instrument Image*, an image of a registered document with the Land Registration System of Ontario. These could include liens, mortgages, transfers, and condominium declarations, among others.

* An official product of the Ontario government pursuant to provincial land registration statutes.

Easily Find Nearby Schools, Parks, and Other Amenities Remotely

If you have the time, driving or walking around a neighbourhood to see nearby community features is great, but it’s not always realistic. When you’re busy, going on a neighbourhood tour might not always be possible, especially if you have a client in the office asking you how close a house they’re looking at is to area schools. With technology like the GeoWarehouse Aerial Imagery, though, you can find out this information without leaving your desk chair.

Determine Property Values When Listing or Evaluating Offers

With the GeoWarehouse Neighbourhood Sales Report, you can learn about the sales in the neighbourhood where the subject property is located. If you’re evaluating a property for listing or evaluating an offer on a home in an area that you’re not familiar with, this can be a big time-saver.

Real estate technology is constantly changing and adapting, but here at GeoWarehouse we believe whatever tools you choose they need to be easy to use, provide real-time data, and, above all, accurate. We’ve taken care to ensure our technology meets all three categories.

Just like technology has increased efficiency with many different things — cellphones make staying in contact with others easier, ice machines built into fridges make having a cold drink easier, you can turn your TV on with your voice only — so, too is there a more efficient way of requesting condo status certificates.

The old process for requesting condo status certificates was:

A real estate sales professional or lawyer would request the condo status certificate from the condo corporation or management company in writing.

At the time of the request, payment for the administrative fee had to be made.

The property management company on behalf of the condo corporation may have taken up to 10 days to prepare the condo status certificate.

Once ready, the condo status certificate had to be retrieved from the condo corporation or property management company.

For seasoned real estate sales professionals, you know why there is value in obtaining the condo status certificate directly, but some newer agents rely on the lawyer to do this. A condo status certificate provides essential information about the financial status of the subject condo and other intelligence, such as whether or not the previous owner was up to date paying their condo fees, if there are increases in condo fees that are about to come into effect, and if there has been a lien placed on the condo for any reason. The old process was slow, inefficient, and often caused delays. Delays that could pose challenges for making the sale.

But there is a better way! Did you know that with tools such as GeoWarehouse you can request your condo certificates online?

New real estate technology, like the tools from GeoWarehouse, can speed up processes and ease frustration. In many cases, a condo status certificate can now be requested online through GeoWarehouse. Real estate sales professionals can request the condo status certificate online, make payment online using a major credit card, receive an email notification when the condo status certificate is ready, download an electronic file containing the condo status certificate, and then email it to the solicitor who is acting for the purchaser.

The end result? A simpler, more efficient process that is not only faster, but also means less work, less frustration, and less follow up for you to do, meaning you can focus more energy on other areas of your real estate business.

Obtaining a condo status certificate online through GeoWarehouse takes the pain out of going through the motions of obtaining a condo status certificate for your clients.

For more information about how you can obtain a condo status certificate online, please visit www.geowarehouse.ca or call 866-237-5937.

During recent years, Customer Relationship Management Systems (CRMs) have become increasingly popular in the real estate industry. CRM’s offer real estate sales professionals the ability to keep track of all interactions with clients, market directly to them, encourage strong relationships with them, and also connect with other professionals in the industry. This means more time spent on the deal itself and less time going back and forth to get there! CRM’s also result in better organization with greater ease.

So while this is well and good, real estate sales professionals have a whole host of platforms to consider when choosing the right CRM for their needs. Most CRMs offer many of the same capabilities: marketing, tracking, workforce automation, etc. and, of course, there are pros and cons for each kind. So does size matter when choosing your CRM for real estate? Is bigger always better?

Let’s take a look at a CRM like Salesforce. As one of the most popular CRMs available, Salesforce is a major player on the CRM scene. CRM, and others like it, offer a plethora of options for businesses looking to fully automate their workflows. And this is great, but does one size fit all?

Your budget is an important consideration when it comes to the CRM that best fits your business size and needs. Larger, major players can charge more for their services, and if your budget allows for expansion, one of the big names might be a great fit for you. However, smaller businesses, especially real estate professionals who work largely independently, would likely find a CRM with a proportionately smaller price point to be a better option.

Does less money mean lower quality? Not by any stretch. But it will likely boil down to fewer capabilities – which this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes narrowing down the list to include only what you actually need just makes better business sense.

Configuration should also be taken into consideration. With the big name companies, configuration can take more legwork. If you have the support to carry configuration out with no issues, then it is advantageous for you. But if your team consists of you and you alone, perhaps you may want to consider how much time you can devote to configuration. Again, this is all relative.

A CRM custom-fit for your business may actually be one that is better when bigger – especially if you have the time and budget to make it work for you. However, bigger isn’t the answer for everyone, and many businesses have chosen to cater their CRM to fit their needs, doing so without attachment to a big name. It’s perfectly viable to opt for specifics rather than adopting the ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ approach.

What CRM are you using? What capabilities are most important to you? Join the discussion.

Coming into the real estate industry as a new real estate sales professional you would be remiss not to realize how competitive an industry you are entering and that efficiency is king. The beauty of being new to the industry is that you can bring fresh ideas to the table about how you go about your daily activities. When we talk efficiency, we mean efficiency in a specific context: the ratio of the useful work performed by a machine or in a process to the total energy expended or heat taken in.

The most effective way to do this is by doing more electronically. From marketing to administering your deals.

On the marketing side, the playing field has been leveled. In the past those with smaller marketing budgets had difficulty competing with the seasoned professionals with big budgets for bench ads, calendars and sign advertising. These conventional marketing mediums have just about been eclipsed by the emergence of social media. Through social media you can market yourself and listings, establishing a vast network of connections – all electronically. Digital marketing through social media or even through real estate specific platforms – both available online and through mobile apps – increase your exposure and a client’s accessibility to you.

In deal administration, the real estate industry has been inherently burdensome on the paper side. Between contracts and agreements, listings, sales comps and the myriad other collateral a real estate sales professional may bring to a meeting, more can now be done electronically.

Meeting a client at your office

When a client comes to your office to meet have 2 things ready:

GeoWarehouse loaded on the computer – to quickly view property information with the client (either their property, or properties they would like to see)

ViMO loaded on your tablet – if the client wants to engage you, you can electronically prepare the listing or representation agreement and sign it electronically

Rather than copying identification and other material the client provides – scan it!

Meeting your client on the go

The old way – purchase:

Pre-prepare representation agreement

Meet the client

Have the client sign initial agreements re: representation

View properties of interest – take photos if necessary

Go back to the office, research the property, if there is an offer to be made, prepare the offer

Meet the client again to sign the offer

Email or fax the offer to the other side

The electronic way – purchase

Ask the client for properties they may be interested in seeing and research some of your own

Attend the appointment armed with sales comps for the properties you will be seeing in the event your client is interested

Meet the client – ensure you have your tablet

Prepare the representation agreement on your tablet and have your client sign it electronically

On the road the client spots a property for sale that wasn’t yet appearing online

Using your ViMO app on your tablet, stand in front of the property and using augmented reality, snap a photo that reveals all property related information

You check ViMO app to see if the other real estate sales professional is online, and they are – you send them a message and they send you the lockbox key

You show your client the property and they love it – you message the other side to expect an offer shortly

You prepare the offer electronically and transmit it to the other side using ViMO

…. And the rest is history….

So as a new real estate sales professional you can see that investing in technology and investigating online tools for real estate sales professionals both online and through mobile apps will make you more efficient and prepared to compete the seasoned pros.

With different real estate technology options available to real estate sales professionals in Ontario, it may leave some wondering: what should I be looking for in a real estate technology and real estate technology provider?

When choosing a real estate technology and provider there are many different things that you should consider:

Where is the data coming from? You want to ensure that the data is coming from the most accurate and trustworthy source. If the source is providing data that is out of date, inaccurate or incomplete it can cause you to make costly decisions on behalf of your client.

Who is the company providing the service? It will be important to choose a company that has a proven and established track record providing real estate technology and a long standing relationship with the supplier(s) of the data.

Does the technology offer maximum benefit? Does the technology do all that it needs to? Does the technology provide you with:

Information about a property’s owner, such as their name, mortgage information, etc.?

Information about a property, such as a legal description, PIN, sales history information?

Information about a particular neighbourhood, such as property owner and sales history information about other properties in a neighbourhood or a neighbourhood itself?

Demographic information, such as who lives in the area, schools and more?

Aerial imagery of an area to quickly identify positive attributes and also areas of concern?

Does the technology enable you to purchase things online like property surveys, condo certificates, etc.?

Is there a mobile version of the application?

Is the real estate technology provider moving in a progressive direction?

Recent changes to the law mean that real estate sales professionals in Ontario will soon be able to sign some legal documents electronically. Your real estate technology provider should be looking at mobile solutions for you to be able to take advantage of this new capability.

Choosing a real estate sales technology and provider is an important decision because ultimately it will directly impact how agile, efficient and competitive you are. The more that you leverage technology, the faster you will be able to do your job and the more work you will be able to do on the go.

For more information about how to choose the best real estate technology or for information about GeoWarehouse please visit www.geowarehouse.ca or call 1-866-237-5937.